51. The Takedown
~ brIDGET ~
Cain was so smug! I could hear the smile in his voice, and it warmed me. For a second I closed my eyes and just let my body sink back into him.
I felt him press his face into my hair, and he inhaled deeply.
Which was when I slammed one heel down right on the arch of his foot and threw my head back to try and break his nose.
He cursed—and so did I, because he’d worn the fucking mask—but his hold on me loosened enough that I could slip free.
At least, I started to.
Fucking Cain and his fucking cat-like reflexes. He recovered fast from the shock, his hand snapping out to clamp on my forearm so I was jerked back to face him as I tried to run.
And suddenly, we were dancing.
The only hold he had on me was that forearm. His fingers dug into my flesh painfully. I’d be bruised if I lived through this.
I tried to dart past him, to bend his arm at a weird angle and break his grip.
But Cain just gave a low, delighted chuckle, side stepped, and I was slingshotted to the forest floor as he used his superior weight to counterbalance and throw me down.
I tumbled, eating dirt, rolling, but clawing into the soft layer of rotting leaves and damp earth, pulling myself back to my feet, and running.
I aimed for the only clear path through the trees I could see—the silver light from the moon lighting up a gap that I thought was probably my clearing. If I could get there first, I could—
“Oh no you don’t—”
It was like being tackled by a freight train.
My head snapped back at the same moment the oxygen whooshed out of my lungs.
I hung in the air for a moment, sucking in a fresh lungful for a scream.
But then I hit the ground so hard my teeth clacked, and it felt like a horse landed on top of me, flattening my body, so I was suddenly grateful for hollow earth under tree roots, and that cushion of leaves and pine needles.
Yet, once again, he’d pinned me to the ground. The most difficult position from which to fight, and the one from which I’d always struggled to grapple.
I planted both hands on the ground and tried to heave, but Cain just chuckled breathlessly, grabbing for one of my hands, trying to pry it around and behind my back—but his grip slipped and I saw my chance.
My elbow was bent up already. When his grip slipped, his balance shifted, and he leaned down for a split second.
I snapped that elbow back, right into his face and when he jerked away, I rolled him, scrambling to my feet. But I’d forgotten the fucking mask!
I hadn’t actually hurt him, just made him flinch. So, even though I got my feet under me, they slid right back out when he roared and launched himself, grabbing for my legs and taking me to the ground again.
I screeched like a cat, clawing for him because he’d flipped me to my back this time. He crawled up and over me, growling, muttering, clawing his way up my body and grabbing for my hands.
We wrestled.
Teeth gritted, nails out, I fought. Struggled. My heart pounded in my skull so hard it hurt. Like my brain was expanding. I saw stars and barely registered over the thrumming in my ears that Cain was snarling.
“Bridget— fuck!”
“Coward!” I spat through my teeth as he got both hands gripping my wrists and pulled my hands high over my head, which immobilized my body because I had no leverage. “Couldn’t even let me see your face now?!”
“Listen to me—”
“Couldn’t risk yourself at all—you fucking pussy! I gave everything up for you! I was willing to fucking live for you—”
“What? But—”
“—and you can’t even show your fucking face!”
“Bridget—” he snarled through his teeth, pulling himself up to straddle me, using his weight to keep my hips pinned to the ground, making my efforts to push up and away, futile. My heels scrabbled in the dirt, finding no purchase. And he leaned over me, shifting both my wrists to one of his hands, locking both of them in his strong fingers and pinning them over my head. “Bridget, stop fucking fighting for one second before I hurt you!”
“Why?! That’s the whole point! If you won’t even let me see—”
“I SAID, STOP!” he bellowed, squeezing my wrists so hard my hands tingled, leaning over me, panting, his chest heaving.
“Why? What are you going to do—kill me?!” I screeched. “Newsflash, Cain—”
He reached back to somewhere on his thigh and suddenly there was a flash of light—the moonlight gleaming on a straight blade longer than his hand.
The words died in my throat, and my heart screamed. I couldn’t take my eyes off it as he flipped it in his grip like someone who was very familiar with handling a knife, and brought it up to press against my throat.
“Just… stop…” he said hoarsely.
My chest was heaving too, and my entire nervous system jangling with alarm. He was here. He had me. He was going to kill me and not fuck me? And he wouldn’t even show me his face—
“Don’t. Move,” he snarled.
With that blade still pressed at my throat with one hand, he let go of my wrists and sat back slightly, leaning into the knife so I could feel the chill of its edge against my skin.
But just as I tensed, bracing for the pain—for the end— he reached up with that free hand, grasped the bottom of the mask and tore it up and off his face, throwing back his hood at the same time, then staring down at me, jaw tight and flexing, his stubbled cheeks shadowed in the moonlight, his eyes a little wild, hair mussed and sticking up because of how he’d forced the mask back.
And everything in my body—even my heart—went still.
Utterly still.
Quiet.
Unmoving.
I searched his eyes—those tormented, glinting eyes that were fierce with male aggression and… pleading?
“Sam?!” I breathed.
What the fuck?
What the actual fuck?!